Evaluate Marxist explanations of the role of education in society.
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A Level
2019
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A-Level Sociology Essay Outline: Marxist Explanations of Education
This essay will evaluate Marxist explanations of the role of education in society, considering both their strengths and weaknesses.
Introduction
Start by defining the key terms: Marxism and education. Briefly introduce the main Marxist perspectives on education, such as the role of education as an ideological state apparatus (ISA) and the concept of social reproduction.
Strengths of Marxist Explanations
This section will focus on the key strengths of Marxist perspectives on education, drawing on specific theorists and examples:
1. Education as an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)
- Althusser: Education is an ISA that transmits the dominant ideology and norms of capitalism, shaping individuals to accept their place in society.
- Gramsci's concept of hegemony: Education plays a crucial role in maintaining the status quo by socializing individuals into accepting the dominant values and beliefs.
2. The Correspondence Principle
- Bowles and Gintis: Education replicates the hierarchical structure of the workplace, preparing students for their future roles as workers and preparing them for their place in the capitalist system.
- The hidden curriculum instills values like obedience, discipline, and competition to ensure a compliant workforce.
3. Legitimation of Inequality
- Ball: The hidden curriculum reinforces existing inequalities by perpetuating the myth of meritocracy and justifying the social hierarchy.
- Bourdieu: Cultural capital, accumulated through family background and socialization, explains why working-class students tend to underperform.
- This can be linked to Cultural Reproduction
4. Social Reproduction and Training Schemes
- Poulantzas and Giroux: The education system ensures that the children of the ruling class succeed, while those from working-class backgrounds often underachieve.
- Ball, Green, Finn, and Craine: Vocational pathways and training schemes are analyzed as mechanisms for social control and the reproduction of inequality.
5. Contemporary Marxist Perspectives
- Rikowski: Education is increasingly organized on business lines, with a focus on 'human capital' and market values. This further reinforces social reproduction.
- Willis: Working-class students can resist the dominant ideology of the school system but still end up in working-class jobs, illustrating a complex relationship between agency and structure.
- Noble: The hidden costs of education disproportionately affect working-class families, further contributing to social reproduction.
Weaknesses of Marxist Explanations
This section will critically evaluate Marxist perspectives by highlighting their limitations and considering alternative theoretical perspectives:
1. Critique of the Correspondence Principle
- Bowles and Gintis's reliance on IQ scores as a measure of intelligence has been criticized for being biased and inaccurate.
- The formal curriculum also includes subjects like sociology, which can encourage critical thinking about social structures.
2. Changes in the Workplace
- Giroux argues that Bowles and Gintis's ideas may be outdated in the 21st century, where workers are increasingly expected to be more autonomous and collaborative.
3. Resistance and Agency
- Willis's study suggests that working-class students can resist the dominant ideology and make their own choices, challenging the deterministic nature of some Marxist perspectives.
4. Challenges from Other Theoretical Perspectives
- Functionalism (Durkheim, Parsons, Davis and Moore, Sullivan): Emphasizes the positive role of education in maintaining social order and providing skills for society.
- New Right (Chubb & Moe): Argues that competition and choice within education are necessary for improving standards and efficiency.
- Feminism (Walby): Highlights the gendered inequalities within the education system and how these reinforce patriarchal structures.
- Social Democratic perspectives: Address the need for policies to mitigate inequality and improve opportunities for working-class students.
5. Measurement Issues
- Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital is difficult to measure objectively and may be influenced by other factors, like social class.
Conclusion
This conclusion should summarize the main points of the essay, restating the strengths and weaknesses of Marxist perspectives on education.
- It should offer a balanced assessment of whether Marxism provides a useful framework for understanding the role of education in society.
- Consider whether the Marxist explanations are still relevant in the 21st century.
- Acknowledge the limitations of Marxist perspectives, but also recognize their strengths in highlighting issues of inequality and social reproduction.
Evaluate Marxist explanations of the role of education in society.
Marxist sociologists view education as serving the needs of the capitalist economic system. They argue that education helps to maintain class inequality and reproduce the capitalist workforce.
Strengths of Marxist Explanations
Althusser (1971) argues that education is an ideological state apparatus (ISA). This means that it is a tool used by the ruling class to transmit their ideology and maintain their power. According to Althusser, education does this by:
- Teaching students the dominant capitalist ideology, which promotes acceptance of the status quo and the legitimacy of capitalist values.
- Preparing students for their future roles in the capitalist workforce.
Bowles and Gintis (1976) develop this idea with their correspondence principle. This theory argues that there is a close relationship between the way schools are organised and the way workplaces are organised. Both institutions are hierarchical, with students at the bottom and teachers/bosses at the top.
They argue that the hidden curriculum plays a crucial role. This refers to the norms, values, and beliefs that are transmitted through the everyday practices of schooling, rather than through the formal curriculum. For example, schools teach students to be punctual, obedient, and to respect authority, which prepares them for their future roles as workers in a capitalist society.
Bourdieu (1977) argues that education reproduces existing class inequalities by favouring the culture of the dominant class. He uses the concept of cultural capital to explain how middle-class students are advantaged in the education system. Middle-class children are more likely to have the cultural knowledge and language skills that are valued in education, which gives them an advantage over working-class children.
These Marxist perspectives offer a powerful critique of the role of education in a capitalist society, highlighting how it perpetuates social and economic disparities.
Weaknesses of Marxist Explanations
However, Marxist approaches are not without their criticisms.
Firstly, they have been criticized for being too deterministic. They assume that individuals are passive recipients of capitalist ideology and that they have no agency to resist it.
Willis (1977), for example, showed that working-class boys actively resisted the attempts by the school to indoctrinate them. They formed a counter-school culture that rejected the values of the school and celebrated working-class masculinity.
Secondly, critics argue that Marxists ignore the influence of other factors, such as gender and ethnicity, on educational achievement.
Third, critics argue that the correspondence principle is too simplistic. They point out that there is a great deal of variation between schools and workplaces. Not all schools are authoritarian and hierarchical, and not all workplaces are meritocratic.
Finally, Marxists have been criticized for being too negative about the role of education. They tend to ignore the fact that education can be a force for social change and can empower individuals to challenge inequality.
Alternative Perspectives
Functionalists, for example, argue that education plays a vital role in society by transmitting shared values and preparing individuals for their roles in the workforce. They see education as a meritocratic system that rewards hard work and talent, regardless of social class.
Social Democrats also believe that education can be a tool for social justice. They argue that the government should invest in education to provide equal opportunities for all, regardless of their background.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Marxist explanations offer a valuable critique of the role of education in society, highlighting the ways in which it can reproduce social inequality. They help us to understand how the hidden curriculum and the transmission of cultural capital can disadvantage working-class students. However, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of Marxist perspectives, including their deterministic nature and their tendency to overlook the influence of other factors like gender and ethnicity. A balanced understanding of education's role in society requires considering alternative perspectives and recognizing both its potential to perpetuate inequality and its capacity to empower individuals and promote social change.
Free Mark Scheme Extracts
AO1: Knowledge and Understanding
Candidates may consider different theoretical approaches such as:
- Traditional Marxism
- Neo-Marxism
Candidates are expected to discuss the strengths of Marxist explanations of the role of education in society such as:
- Role of education as ideological state apparatus (ISA), preparing young people to accept their place in the capitalist system. Althusser
- In modern society, the school system was one part of the system of ideological hegemony in which individuals were socialised into maintaining the status quo; Gramsci 1971
- Bowles and Gintis – the correspondence principle - how education prepares and selects pupils for the world of work, through the hidden curriculum values such as hard work and obedience are instilled and pupils are taught discipline, motivation by external rewards, hierarchical roles;
- Bowles and Gintis challenge functionalist views on meritocracy, claiming that in capitalist societies it is a ‘myth’, used to justify inequalities.
- Legitimation of inequality through the hidden curriculum, Ball.
- Cultural reproduction; Bourdieu
- The education system ensures that the children of the ruling class generally succeed, while the children of the working class generally underperform; Poulantzas and Giroux.
- Young people who follow a vocational rather than academic pathway discovers it attracts lower status; Ball, Green
- Main role of training schemes is to remove young people temporarily from unemployment; Finn
- Training schemes interpreted as a way of providing employers with cheap labour - ‘black magic roundabout’ a carousel of unemployment, training schemes and unskilled work; Craine
- Recently education increasingly organised on business lines; Rikowski, 2002, 2005
- Seeing through the myth of meritocracy, but still leading to social reproduction; Willis
- Hidden costs of education benefitting middle class, leading to social reproduction; Noble
- Other reasonable response.
AO2: Application
The selected knowledge should be directly related to the specific question - Marxist explanations of the role of education in society.
AO3: Analysis and Evaluation
Candidates could use opposing approaches to challenge Marxist explanations such as:
- Functionalism
- New Right
- Social Democratic
- Feminism
- Interactionism
Candidates are expected to discuss the weaknesses of Marxist explanations of the role of education in society such as:
- Bowles and Gintis’ correspondence principal criticised for a reliance on IQ scores as a measure of intelligence.
- Bowles and Gintis’ focus on hidden curriculum, yet the formal curriculum contains subjects such as sociology where students are encouraged to look at society critically.
- 21st century, Bowles and Gintis ideas dated, workers are required to make decisions and team work, less passivity and obedience, both students and teachers may also resist this process; Giroux
- Willis could be used to challenge some Marxist ideas.
- Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital is difficult to measure.
- Functionalists; e.g. Durkheim, Parsons, Davis and Moore, Sullivan
- New Right; e.g. Chubb & Moe
- Feminists; e.g. Walby
- Marxists ignore social democratic compensatory policies that have aided the working-class social mobility e.g. EMA/PP
- Other reasonable response.